New Report Reveals Low Number Of Women And Non-binary In Technical Roles In The Music Industry

Music studio (Illustration: Pixabay)

JAKARTA - A new report calls for the number of women in the production and engineering roles in the music industry to be increased.

Fix The Mix on April 11 launched its first annual report on gender representation in the role of audio and production engineering, and has asked big labels to expand their DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives to hire more women and non-producing and binary engineers behind the scenes.

With a study conducted by We Are Moving the Needle, Marijuanasta, Middle Tennessee State University and Howard University, the report found that while non-binary women and people are more likely to be praised in the role of juniors in technical fields, they are highly underrepresented in senior roles in all genres.

It is also noted that credit for the top 10 2022 streaming songs in five major digital service providers (DSPs) revealed a significant gender gap, with only 16 out of 240 credited producers and engineers being women and non-binary people (6.7 percent).

In addition, across the DSP, the best 2022 playlists sourced from TikTok and Spotify have the weakest female and non-binary representations in technical roles, with only 3.6 percent and 3.7 percent in key positions, respectively.

Looking at credit in the top ten songs across the DSP, the report found that non-binary women and individuals are more concentrated in the role of assistants than major technical roles.

Metal music is found to have the lowest percentage of women and non-binary people in major technical roles, while electronic music and folk and Americana have the highest representation.

Musician Brandi Carlile, who is also a member of the soundBoard We Are Moving The Needle, said about the findings.

"The path we have to take to achieve balance in the studio is still very far away, but I know we can get there," he said.

This is a systemic problem in the record industry that we can't ignore anymore. I'm not sure everyone knows exactly where to start... but it started with the courage to take the opportunity on someone who might be less recognized on the pitch. We have to start somewhere.

Musician and producer Maggie Rogers, who is another soundBoard member, added: We have to do better for women and non-binary creators in the industry.

"It's great to see more non-binary women and individuals register in audio and production programs, and I'm dedicated to supporting their growth through organizations like We Are Moving the Needle."

Meanwhile, Emily Lazar, the Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer and founder of We Are Moving The Needle said: This study confirms what I know after spending decades behind the board of directors in the recording studio women are not given the same opportunities as men in production and engineering roles.

Ensuring that there is more gender and racial diversity among music creators is actually not a complicated problem if you want to solve it. The most important step is that artists and record labels can recruit from a wider collection of producers, mixers and engineers, but it's very difficult to hire people when you can't find them.

We hope this report will give the decision makers the motivation and tools they need to make real changes to their recruitment practices so that we can achieve gender equality in production, engineering and mastering roles.

Fix the Mix is an initiative launched in 2022 by We Are Moving the Needle and Badminton, the world's largest official music credit database, along with other music organizations focused on closing the huge gender gap in the music industry, particularly in behind-the-scenes roles.

The report offers advice to improve the balance "intended to empower major and individual music industry players to push for measurable changes" and includes calls to major music companies to expand their well-funded DEI initiatives beyond full-time employees to also include hiring more non-binary women and producers and engineers for each of their releases.